Credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, membership cards, loyalty cards, promotional cards, identification cards, etc., all of which are generally known as transaction cards, are commonly used today. Transaction cards include information for carrying out one or more specified transactions. The information is typically carried upon or within the boundaries of the card on a transaction information medium, such as a magnetic stripe, a bar code, optical storage, a computer chip, a smart chip, or the like.
Transaction card readers are required in a large number of situations, such as when paying for fuel at a fuel dispenser, an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), or in a retail setting. A card reader allows a customer to pay more efficiently without having to hand a credit card over to an employee or, in some situations like at a fuel dispenser or an ATM, even interact with an employee. Card readers can be manual or motorized. Manual card readers require the user to insert a transaction card into the card reader and then pull it back out. A motorized card reader accepts a credit card into a card slot from a user, and the reader may have rubber wheels for drawing the card inside. The user thus has control over the transaction card when using a manual card reader, and the card reader itself has control over the transaction card when a user is interacting with a motorized card reader. Often a motorized card reader is secured so it will not be possible to access the components of the reader without breaking a tamper switch. This extra security helps to protect transaction cards used in the motorized card reader, but a motorized card reader is often more difficult and expensive to maintain because of the increased complexity of the reader. A manual card reader is often less expensive to maintain because of the lack of any motorized components to accept the card. Moreover, a user will always have physical control of the card thus preventing the risk of the card becoming stuck in the reader.
One drawback with both manual and automatic card readers is susceptibility to “skimming.” As card readers often have a single slot for use by both a magnetic stripe and a chip, once a card is passed through the magnetic stripe reader, the card is susceptible to being skimmed. One type of skimmers includes a small device attached to the slot for scanning and storing transaction card data from the magnetic stripe. Thieves can use the stored transaction data to make fraudulent charges either online or with a counterfeit credit card.
Accordingly, there remains a need for methods and devices for preventing skimming of transaction cards in a card reader.